You might be seeing this on a 15-second delay: study

Our eyes are continuously bombarded by visual information - millions of colours, shapes and ever-changing motion - yet seeing never feels like work.

Researchers have discovered one reason: Our brains perform automatic visual smoothing over time. A new study has found that our visual perception of things is influenced by what we saw up to 15 seconds ago. This helps create a stable environment, despite sacrificing some accuracy.

It also means that what you see around you - that cup of coffee, the face of your co-worker, your computer screen - may be a time-averaged composite of now and the past.

You might be seeing this on a 15-second delay: study

Well this is certainly interesting.

This study has revealed that our visual perspective is influenced by time, and prior objects:

"What you are seeing at the present moment is not a fresh snapshot of the world but rather an average of what you've seen in the past 10 to 15 seconds," said study author Jason Fischer, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The information was found by conducting the following test:

He showed subjects an image of a black-and-white grating tilted at a random angle for half a second, then asked them to identify the orientation of the grating they just saw. Then a few seconds later, another grating popped up, and they were to identify its angle.

If the subjects saw the gratings completely accurately, their answers would have no dependence on past gratings, since the orientations were random. Instead, their answers showed a strong influence from the angles they saw previously, even up to 15 seconds earlier.

For instance, if the first grating was tilted to the left and the second was vertical, the subject saw the vertical grating as slanted toward the left.

While our perspective may be influenced by time, and prior objects, it isn't all so bad. The 'continuity field', as has been called by those involved in the study, apparently stabilises the world around us. If our eyes had not worked in such a way, the world would likely appear to us as a 'jittery' mess.

"This is the brain's way of reducing the number of things we have to deal with in the visual environment," said psychologist Aaron Johnson of Concordia University in Montreal, who was not involved in the study. "If we were sensitive to every little change, our brains probably couldn't cope."

I think this is a pretty cool discovery.

the world would likely appear to us as a 'jittery' mess

Well it appears to me as a jittery mess for quite some time but interesting find anyway.

Does this mean we only slam on our brakes when the 10 second "averaging" seems inclined towards an imminent accident?
I don't buy this study at all.
Like most science these days it looks at small phenomena in isolation then makes inferences on things outside of the study to infer broader implications that often don't exist.

reply to post by daaskapital


this is why you don't easily detect subtle changes, like the flushing of the face from hearbeat.

Very interesting.

reply to post by daaskapital


so next time a woman gets insulted because you didn't noticed her hair color change or haircut right away you have a nice excuse.
when you pass through the red light you can do the same: "it seemed to me like light green!"
very interesting and, in my opinion, very natural.

If this is true then how do people catch a ball? or play tennis? these things require split second timing and even a small delay will mess things up.

Asktheanimals
Does this mean we only slam on our brakes when the 10 second "averaging" seems inclined towards an imminent accident?
I don't buy this study at all.
Like most science these days it looks at small phenomena in isolation then makes inferences on things outside of the study to infer broader implications that often don't exist.

I imagine there would be other factors influencing that specific action. With that said, i don't think that is what this study is stating.

What we see is influenced by our perception of the previous 10 to 15 seconds, if this study is anything to go by. Therefore, how can the averaging of the continuity field be inclined towards an imminent accident if the brain has not processed, visually, that encounter before slamming on the brakes? This study seems, at least to me, to be saying that an individual must process specific things before any incline appears.

But as the article states:

Fischer and Whitney also found that the filter seems to come into play only when we need it. Attention matters - past images had an influence if the subjects were paying attention to them, but not if the images or objects were peripheral or in a radically different location. And predictably, the influence of older images lessened the more time passed.

I don't know. I think it is an interesting study, but one which needs more investigation.

reply to post by daaskapital

This helps create a stable environment, despite sacrificing some accuracy.

That is why to really analyze something, you have to stare at it.
So, the term, stare,

1. To look directly and fixedly, often with a wide-eyed gaze.

stare - Its etymological notion is "fixity" or "rigidity," from a Germanic base meaning "be rigid."

Elton
If this is true then how do people catch a ball? or play tennis? these things require split second timing and even a small delay will mess things up.

people still can see the ball but the ball they "see" is being smoothed out based on the ball they "saw" 1-2-3-10 or maximum 15 seconds ago; at least that is what the experiment referred in the OP is saying.

reply to post by Elton

If this is true then how do people catch a ball? or play tennis?

I know from watching tennis on ESPN that this is a term used by commentators, to "see" the ball, where this is an acquired skill, and as an ability can come and go in different circumstances, something that separates the good players from the bad ones.

Very interesting...we don't see what's actually out there, but a perception of what's out there really.
We see a biased version of the real world because our brains know that objects don't change suddenly.

To understand this I see the brain as a computer: the brain (through our eyes) receives so many bits of information but we are not aware of all of them. I believe the brain only let us see what we need to see in order to survive: if we have to take the time to analyze all the date the brain receives, then we wouldn't be able to react quickly and escape harm (for example).

reply to post by daaskapital


I've gone with the brain imaging everything in about half a second (the example from one book says that when you hit a tennis ball in real life it's already almost over the net), and this new information, the 15 second smooth out, pertains not to instant by instant operability but seems to say that the overall image is influenced by what has occurred in the recent past.

Can this be one of the things influencing the time-slowing-way-down phenomena? That's only happened to me once, as a very young child, maybe seven or eight, when I was whirling a croquet mallet around and around and it got loose from my hand and I could see it going right towards a second story window. As I watched it time slowed down (in an attempt to stop I assume, because I knew that it would break the window, which it did), and then speeded up into "regular" again when the window shattered. So for the 15 second world-map to enter into the picture, since this was the first time I was going to break anything so solid and it wasn't my house, the brain had to elongate the moment to accommodate the new experience. As an aside, I wonder if this is part of the brain damage done in PTSD incidents.

reply to post by demus

What I read indicated that a tennis ball coming towards a player on their left.... if followed by one coming straight on within 15 seconds, the ball coming straight on would be seen as coming from the left side.
One would think that most of us would be total bumbling fools, unable to avoid most danger if this research is accurate.

Children with Autism often cover their eyes, they do so because unlike like us, when they look at something, say someones face, they see hundreds of still images. This was revealed when a young autistic girl learnt to use a laptop. Maybe they are missing this "averaging"?

VoidHawk
Children with Autism often cover their eyes, they do so because unlike like us, when they look at something, say someones face, they see hundreds of still images. This was revealed when a young autistic girl learnt to use a laptop. Maybe they are missing this "averaging"?

They see hundreds of still images? I didn't know that. How about someone mildly autistic? This sounds more like the ability to micro-experience the brain's ability to form pictures with that half-second delay. American baseball great Ted Williams said that he'd see the ball so well when it was pitched and coming at him that he could see the seams turn - maybe he was very mildly autistic and had the ability to see these fast images (his eyes were tested and he had extraordinary eyesight though, but maybe that's either a factor of the lens being aligned perfectly or the ability to discern slight variations in photon placement as hinted at in your post)

reply to post by daaskapital


Oh this instantly reminds me of parenting, have you ever watched a child do something and it looks like the mother is oblivious of what her child has done?
This just one reason it takes a village to raise a child, and the saying eyes wide shut comes to mind.

Love and harmony
Whateva

butcherguy
reply to post by demus

 

What I read indicated that a tennis ball coming towards a player on their left.... if followed by one coming straight on within 15 seconds, the ball coming straight on would be seen as coming from the left side.
One would think that most of us would be total bumbling fools, unable to avoid most danger if this research is accurate.

not that it would look like it's coming from the left side but our brain would take that last 15 seconds into account.

we would still see the ball coming from that direction but what they are trying to say is what we see is not 100% what is actually happening.

I guess our sensors have (very high) limits.

Agartha
Very interesting...we don't see what's actually out there, but a perception of what's out there really.
We see a biased version of the real world because our brains know that objects don't change suddenly.

To understand this I see the brain as a computer: the brain (through our eyes) receives so many bits of information but we are not aware of all of them. I believe the brain only let us see what we need to see in order to survive: if we have to take the time to analyze all the date the brain receives, then we wouldn't be able to react quickly and escape harm (for example).

This makes perfect sense to me.

My story is about hearing, rather than seeing... but it has bearing on how our brain processes for survival. The other night my husband was having a problem with the key and sat there messing with the door for several seconds before he came in. By the time he got through the door, the abnormal sounds had woken me up out of a dead sleep, and I was in fight mode by the time he came through the door...

Yet when he comes home normally and doesn't have any problems getting the key in the door, I sleep soundly through him coming home and rummaging around the house...

normal sounds verses abnormal sounds... the same must be true for sight as well. When normal becomes abnormal, your brain reacts instantly!

Aleister

VoidHawk
Children with Autism often cover their eyes, they do so because unlike like us, when they look at something, say someones face, they see hundreds of still images. This was revealed when a young autistic girl learnt to use a laptop. Maybe they are missing this "averaging"?

They see hundreds of still images? I didn't know that. How about someone mildly autistic? This sounds more like the ability to micro-experience the brain's ability to form pictures with that half-second delay. American baseball great Ted Williams said that he'd see the ball so well when it was pitched and coming at him that he could see the seams turn - maybe he was very mildly autistic and had the ability to see these fast images (his eyes were tested and he had extraordinary eyesight though, but maybe that's either a factor of the lens being aligned perfectly or the ability to discern slight variations in photon placement as hinted at in your post)

I dont know about being mildly autistic, but many of them cover their faces. It was only when the girl learnt to use the laptop that they found out why. She said looking at somones face caused an avalance of still images that overloaded their mind, thats why they cover their eyes, they cant cope with it.

OpinionatedB

Agartha
Very interesting...we don't see what's actually out there, but a perception of what's out there really.
We see a biased version of the real world because our brains know that objects don't change suddenly.

To understand this I see the brain as a computer: the brain (through our eyes) receives so many bits of information but we are not aware of all of them. I believe the brain only let us see what we need to see in order to survive: if we have to take the time to analyze all the date the brain receives, then we wouldn't be able to react quickly and escape harm (for example).

This makes perfect sense to me.

My story is about hearing, rather than seeing... but it has bearing on how our brain processes for survival. The other night my husband was having a problem with the key and sat there messing with the door for several seconds before he came in. By the time he got through the door, the abnormal sounds had woken me up out of a dead sleep, and I was in fight mode by the time he came through the door...

Yet when he comes home normally and doesn't have any problems getting the key in the door, I sleep soundly through him coming home and rummaging around the house...

normal sounds verses abnormal sounds... the same must be true for sight as well. When normal becomes abnormal, your brain reacts instantly!

to paraphrase you; it makes perfect sense for me.

when we are sleeping we are not dead (luckily), so not all of our senses are (or not entirely) turned off.

we still have basic instincts and will wake up to unusual sounds, smells and other stimulus.

again, it makes perfect sense.